Metaverse is fiveyearsold!

I am proud to say that in all this time I have received no awards, set no text to blink, animated no gifs, and posted no nude pictures. (Okay, there are a few topless shots of imaginary beings.)

January 2003

Maybe the Internet has peaked... my hit rate has been pretty stable all year.
The hits count page has been updated.

But never mind that; let's look at search strings people used to get here!
The >> link shows what page the string took them to.

have we cloned>>If you wanted more tieboys, yeshow to eat like elvis>>This could be bigger than Atkins!kobold names>>Honey, what you do think about Grishnâkh if it's a boy?women urinating for revenge>>I was hoping to be first in Google for this search string, but no, I'm on page 2.how can you tell if you appear french >>Well. Are you wearing a beret?how to draw the genitals>>Someday this guy's going to ask 'How to upload to the web'. PH33Rhow to know if you had sex with a man or a woman in brazil>>Those lingering doubts can ruin an otherwise great tripi wonder if the world is real>>At least you believe a website can give you the answerin what form of matter do japanese eat>>Plasma.mathematical explanations of homosexuality>>Sorry, I can never remember diff. eq.ware to bye marvel comics>>I think Peter Parker is too much like Jimmy Corrigan alreadyWhat do people do in Spain?>>Eat ham and dance flamenco. Next question?

what the heck do u call a robot>>If it's laser-eyed and nuclear-armed, "Sir."wher is my clitoris?>>No, guys, I don't have her e-mail addresshow do you tell if someone has has sex recently?>>The big goofy grin. Or a confused look, if they were in BrazilSUBMARINES HOW TO BUILD>>Use the production dropdown on the city windowwhat is wrong with a guy when he does not want sex>>He's dead?why do teenage girls turn out like "enid" in the film "ghost world">>Video games and liberalismare Republicans really Christians?>>Oh, don't get me startedBELGIUM Erotic fiction>>That's the sickest fetish evercan a turkish man love a english woman does it work and what do turkish man expect?>>So, did it work out OK?do you have a gun>>Twin samurai swords, baby.female nude martial arts>>Talk about implausible costumes.How to make him like me>>Clone yourself!income tax should be changed so everyone is taxed on their own income>>As opposed to whose?what else is there to use instead of just rockets>>Once you're tired of rockets, pal, you're tired of life

why do people cry?>>Because they've been mocked on the webChicago bands with Mike>>Uh, Mike who? Oh, wait, Mike, yeahnude girls dressed up as magicians>>There's a little conceptual problem herequotes to get a girl back>>Try those Jack Handey ones, they're funnywhy no moon base>>Dammit, I want to know too!how to tell if a sheep is in labour>>"Bessie is really sufferin'!" "Hang on woman, I'm a-Googlin' as fast as I can!"nothing to do with numbers>>Must have pissed him offfellini use of characters >> >>Note where they went... an unexpected answer but a valid oneconsul of Elrond>>Forget it, the lines are too long-- go right to the embassyfind the bad words dictionary like bastard, rascal etc.>>Omigod, you said 'rascal'!how long did the hundred year war last>>Next: Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?how to draw enki bilal>>The tricky part is getting his nose rightWhat is good thing about American food>>You French people are so sarcasticsuck the breast>>Say, I am #1 in Google for this!
What amuses me, though, is the idea of some joe looking for porn and deciding, OK, sure, some historical linguistics will do instead.

February 2002
Hits continue to go up. If I were a dot-com, I could capitalize at $132.6 million!

And (just about anyone) nude. Several people each week
are looking for olsen twins nude. Dudes: Get. Help.
Others have wanted Fran Dresher, Rosanne,
or Daisy Duck. Most of the porn-seekers end up at Un Chien Spinndalou,
which I hope gratifies them.

After someone got here with picture of girl and chimpanzee,
I discovered that I was #1 in Google for that search string. Unfortunately I seem
to have lost that honor.

Here's the sort of geeky thing I do with the web stats...
a picture of average requests (of all types) per day for the last two years.
(See above; same info is in newer graph.)

December 2000

More me: you can see my
Sim Games for the Successful
at The Brunching Shuttlecocks (which, by the way, is one of the best humor sites on the web--
and I don't say that just because they paid me).

Also, my piece on yingzi has appeared in print,
in Source, the newsletter of the American Translators Assocation's Literary Division.
(Which is rather an interesting mag, focussing on the problems of translating literary works.)

August 2000

Whee! There are now a bit more than 1000 pages that link to
Metaverse. (Well, probably a bit less, since some of these have
gone out of business; and a bit more, because I'm sure I haven't
found them all.) All the monkeys thank you very kindly.

Hits have more than doubled since last year. I got a lot of visitors from Yahoo when they listed the Language Construction Kit... so, no more jokes about their name, no sir. Here's the most-requested pages in the last 12 months:

To my chagrin, there are now some actual photographs of me on the Web.
No, I'm not going to tell you where; though I will note that you can get to one of them from this page in five clicks.

March 1999

The big news this year is the new domain. I got it because I was traumatized by the announcement that tezcat was closing, leaving me with the prospect that links to my pages would rot into nothingness in less than a month.
Fortunately, the jackals will not feast on tezcat's bones quite yet; but www.zompist.com
will be around forever, unless I forget to pay the InterNic bill, or my guns
and ammo run out after the Y2K apocalypse, or something.

It's also easier to type, no?

But the best part of the new domain? Web statistics! For instance,
I got 16,576 hits last week. (And only 32 of them were for the topless pictures.)

I get all sorts of neat info on visitors. For instance,
what browsers you use:

My Love & Rockets chronology is listed on a page full of sex sites. (Sorry, no link. If you can't figure out how to use a search engine, you don't deserve to look at nudie pictures.)

I do get a little feedback these days on my comic strip, Fuschia Chang. The nicest mail was from an Asian-American lesbian, so the imposture isn't completely unsuccessful. As soon as my novel's in the mail I'll draw more. Or should I just finish my Fuschia KISS set?

I've also corresponded with Tintin fans in Belgium, conlang creators from Argentina to Hungary, many linguists, collectors of numbers in Australia, Hong Kong, Russia, and Ohio, an Italian grad student studying FAQs as a text form, a British pop star, speakers of Quechua (rimaykullayki, amigukuna!), fellow fans of Faye Wong, a star science fiction writer, and a right-winger who argued with me for awhile, muttered about the liberal media, and suddenly disappeared.

Here are the most frequently asked questions about me:

What do you do anyway? Are you a linguist?

I work as a programmer. But what I really want to do is direct.

Where do you live?

In Oak Park, Illinois, where Ernest Hemingway was born, and lived
till he could move out. Also where Frank Lloyd Wright lived until
he ditched his family for another woman. For non-Americans: Oak Park is just outside Chicago, the city of Al Capone.

How long did it take you to do all that Verdurian stuff ?

Going on twenty years now.

How do you find the time for all this?

I don't have kids and I don't watch TV.

Would you like to MAKE MONEY FAST?

Yes. Send me as much as you like.

Questions no one ever asks, so I won't answer them here:

What's a Metaverse?

Where does the name Horselover Fat come from?

What's a zompist?

Still more me? My latest paper publication appeared in the Journal of Irreproducible Results, vol. 43, No. 5/6, 1998-- "Bring Glamour Back to Science!" I can't quote it here, but I can include the suggestion that they snipped:

Abstracts are normally written in mind-deadening jargon, something like this:

"LLC-MK2 cell monolayers infected with Trypanosoma cruzi were shown by immunifluorescence to present parasite antigens on the surface of both parasitized and non-parasitized cells after completion of the first intracellular cycle and rupture of infected cells. The origin of this antigen, as well as its role in the pathogenesis of Chagas' disease, are discussed."

A more modern and effective method of presentation can be learned from rap artists, as follows:

That Trypanosoma cruziMothah leaves you feelin' woozy.
We injected it in cells
Made a microscopic hell
And we found the antigens
Starin' right back thru the lens
From the cells that was infected
Plus the others we inspected.
When a bro comes down with Chagas'
Life ain't no Las Vegas.